Minister answers more questions about power

The energy minister says Victoria has enough power, blaming “poles and wires” for this week's power outages in oppressive heat.

Lily d’Ambrosio told Melbourne Radio's Neil Mitchell that Victorians “shouldn't have to cop it” and will demand answers and solutions from power company chiefs today.

“A lot of attention has focused on whether we have enough energy for summer,” she said.

“We do. Last night that wasn’t the problem.

“The poles and wires and substations have let us down.”

“My priority is that once everyone’s power has been restored … I’ll be sitting down with the distribution businesses, with the market operator overseeing their efforts, and the Australian Energy regulator to actually get them to identify what went wrong, why, and what steps they’re going to take,” Ms d’Ambrosio.

“People deserve to have confidence in our energy system.”

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EARLIER: The State’s Energy Minister has defended Victoria’s power supply as thousands of households were left in the dark overnight – sweltering with no electricity and no cooling.

More than 50,000 homes and businesses covered by City Power, Power Corp, United Energy and AusNet Services have been without electricity during the night.

United Energy’s website crashed with a ‘Sorry’ message displayed for much of the night.

The State Opposition took the opportunity to blame the outages on the Hazlewood shutdown.

TWITTERTALK

The power system held up in extreme heat from a supply / demand perspective today, but there are local VIC network outages - crews from Powercor, CitiPower, United Energy, Ausnet and Jemena working hard to restore! Stay safe!!